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Zarautz, Gipuzkoa. Basque-Argentinean, Ainoa Irazusta left Bahia Blanca last year to come to the Basque Country, specifically to Zarautz where she studies gastronomy in Karlos Argiñano’s restaurant.  Out of everyone in her family, Ainoa got a passion for gastronomy that she learned at home at a young age.

“They come to me for my grandmother’s croquets and those of my grandfather,” Ainoa says, with Argentinean wit.  “In the Bahia Blanca Basque club, a group of us used to get together to cook for events, empanadas, tortillas…It was always a pleasure, knowing that you were cooking for others pleasure, having fun,” she explains.

From politics to the kitchen

Her passion for cooking came to the point that she abandoned her studies in Politics – “Politics didn’t go well for me, I couldn’t say one thing and do another,” she said – and so she began to study gastronomy.

Several members of her family are in the Basque Country, like her brother Iker, who runs the snack bars "Gure Aitona," in Orio and "Borguetto", in Zarautz.  She came for the first time in 2009, to help him during the summer and now she has come back to stay and study.

“Nobody knows anything”

During the program on ETB her Argentinean accent surprised spectators, as well as her question about the Basque diaspora.  “I’m not going to lie, when I came here I felt a huge deception.  Last year I joined a dance group in Zarauz , and I realized that nobody knew anything about the Diaspora.  They don’t have any idea!” she affirmed.  “They were in awe of me, and asked ‘how do you know that dance?  Why is your name Ainoa if you are from Argentina?’”

“They don’t understand that there we are immersed in the Basque culture and have been our whole lives.”  “Here, they don’t know that last year the Basque Country was celebrated in Buenos Aires and that there were many activities and that it was super intense, something amazing at the political level,” she says.

Darle bola

“After the program on ETB, after we were done recording, many came to me and asked me what the Diaspora was.  I don’t know if information doesn’t make it here or if people just aren’t interested.  I want to encourage people that know that there is a large group of fans who are very energetically involved in the Basque culture on the other side of the pond; give it importance, and do what you have to so that this information gets out,” she concludes.